What does a gooey, toothpaste-like, glowing, translucent...

OXNARD, Calif. — What does a gooey, toothpaste-like, glowing, translucent gel have to do with selling coffee?

For Barry Hennis, the answer is, "a lot".

"It helps move the product a lot, for sure," said Hennis, marketing director for the Santa Barbara-based Caribbean Coffee Company.

Sales of the company's coffee beans have increased substantially over the last two months, said Hennis every time he puts up one of the new signs that use a glowing gel called Luminite to highlight the firm's logo.

"When the sign goes in, the sales go up," he added. "Our drivers have to restock far more frequently."

The Caribbean Coffee Company is not alone. Retailers as large as Wal-Mart Inc. and companies as well-known as Coca Co. and Motorola Inc. have experimented with point-of-purchase signs made with Luminite.

The Marketplace, a newsletter for the Magazine and Paperback Marketing Institute, reported that sales of periodicals and books rose between 30 and 40 percent when Wal-Mart introduced Luminite signs next to book and magazine racks in 1,000 Wal-Mart stores.

While the Canadian manufacturers of the gel insist that their product is not meant to be a replacement for neon, comparisons between signs made with Luminite and neon signs are inevitable.

When the gel is back-lit with fluorescent light it glows with an intensity nearly equal to that of neon. The flexibility afforded by the gel means that signmakers can create far more intricate designs with Luminite than they can with neon.

"Originally neon-sign makers looked at this as a competitor," said Michael Ivezic, chairman and chief executive officer of Luminart, the Mississauga, Ontario-based company that manufactures the Luminite gel. "It has not worked out that way."

Ivezic and others maintain that Luminite has now become a niche product in the $3.7 billion U.S. market in electrical signs.

"I don't see it replacing neon," said Suzy Beamer, spokeswoman for the National Electric Sign Association. "It is a nice niche item that compliments other products. Neon signs have been around forever and people still seem to love them."

Michael Maloney, a national sales manager for Promac Inc., an Elgin, Ill.-based maker of signs and other promotional materials, agreed. "It is a nice niche product, a nice addition to what we do, but it is not replacing neon."

But he added, "For designing, it has much more flexibility than neon."

Maloney said that Luminite is used in about 20 percent of Promac's sign sales, measured in dollar terms. "We have bought as much of this gel as anyone in the country. We are one of its top users."

Since Luminart started shipping the glowing gel two years ago, sign makers and graphic designers have found innovative ways to use Luminite in a variety of ways.

In a breezy warehouse on the edge of this California town north of Los Angeles, graphic designers at a company called Clear Vision use computers and robotic applicators to turn out signs made with Luminite on surfaces ranging from acrylic sheets to nylon.

Sometimes it takes only minutes to complete a sign.

"The range of creativity is almost infinite," said Michael Reynolds, chief executive officer of Clear Vision, Inc. "We don't compare ourselves to neon. We add value to signs by using Luminite."

While a typical 4'-by-6' sign made with Luminite, or neon would cost about the same--between $175 and $200--to produce, Reynolds and Luminart officials are quick to point out some of Luminite's advantages over neon--designs can be more intricate and the signs are less expensive to maintain.

Because they are lighted by fluorescent lights, Luminite signs eliminate the need for transformers and other devices used to keep neon signs glowing. The cost of lighting a Luminite sign can be 30 to 40 percent less than illuminating a neon sign, the manufacturers maintain.

Luminite signs, like neon, can be used indoors, or outside.

Ivezic acquired the gel technology and formula from Ontario inventor Harold Sykorka in 1992 and with the help of $4.7 million in private investment, developed Luminite commercially and began test marketing.

In the first 15 months after it began distribution in 1994,, Luminart generated $7.2 million in sales of the gel and application technology. In the first nine months of its second year of operation the company recorded $9.9 million in revenue, but made a profit of only $957,000 as a result of continued high start-up costs.

Last month Luminart received its first U.S. patent on the Luminite gel and controls worldwide production of the material from its Canadian headquarters.